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movie review - The Way of the Gun

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Just before Benicio Del Toro won an oscar for his part in the strange movie Traffic, he co-starred in this gangster flick with Ryan Phillipe. The two of them are small time hoods who stumble upon an opportunity for a kid-napping, and leap in before looking.

Their kidnappee is a pregnant surrogate mother (played by the seemingly unaging Juliette Lewis) who is in way over her head with her clients, a powerful criminal family.

Everything goes to hell in a hurry. There's a lot of gunplay in this one - hence the interesting title - but it's not the romantised gunplay that movies usually portray. In fact, it is so brutal that some of the scenes from the trailer are actually far nastier in the full context of the movie.

A fine film with a dark humour throughout.

Recommended.